Friday Folk Flashback

“The Lark In The Clear Air/Olam Punch” – The Chieftains with Punch Brothers

I’ve been trying to learn the stunning waltz “The Lark In The Clear Air” this week after hearing it on a podcast. I thought I’d share this stunning version from The Chieftains amazing T Bone Burnett produced album Voice of Ages.

We all know that Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell will be heading to Australia this June, but did you know that they’re coming with a brand new album? Harris and Crowell will be following up their Grammy Award winning album Old Yellow Moon with The Travelling Kind due for release on the 8th May.

The album was produced by Joe Henry and features 11 duet tracks – check out the track listing here:

1. The Traveling Kind
2. No Memories Hanging Around
3. Bring It on Home to Memphis
4. You Can’t Say We Didn’t Try
5. The Weight of the World
6. Higher Mountains
7. I Just Wanted to See You So Bad
8. Just Pleasing You
9. If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now
10. Her Hair Was Red
11. La Danse de la Joie

The title track for The Traveling Kind is already streaming online. Check it out below along with the upcoming Australian tour dates:

Legendary country singer Emmylou Harris has announced plans to return to Australia for a tour this June. Harris has announced that she’ll be touring with songwriter and frequent collaborator Rodney Crowell.

The long weekend was also a massive weekend for awards with the Golden Guitars, triple j’s Hottest 100 and The Grammys all vying for attention. If you were too busy to take everything in never fear – we have a nice little Timber and Steel friendly wrap up for you here:

triple j Hottest 100

As you’re no doubt aware the top spot was taken out this year by the folky “Riptide” from Australia’s Vance Joy, pipping favourites “Royals” by Lorde and “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk at the post. Vance Joy also came in at number 95 with his track “Play With Fire”.

The Golden Guitars

So many of our favourite artists have spent the last couple of weeks up in Tamworth for the Country Music Festival which culminated in the Golden Guitar awards on 25th Januray.

We’re really proud that Timber and Steel favourite Lachlan Bryan and The Wildes walked away with Alternative Country Album of the Year for Black Coffee, Ashleigh Dallas was named the Qantaslink New Talent of the Year and that Ted Egan was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Finally Timber and Steel favourite, The Mid North, also walked away from Tamworth winners with both the Battle of the Bands and Buskers Competition gongs under their belt. Definitely a well deserved win!

Emmylou Harris is an artist who is well known for her collaborations so it’s probably not a surprise to hear that she has a duet album in the works with long time collaborator Rodney Crowell. Harris and Crowell have sung on each other’s recordings many times over the last 40 years but this is the first time they have dedicated an album to duets together.

“It’s looking like we’re going to have the original [Hot] Band, at least in some form, and everybody’s excited about it,” Emmylou Harris told the Los Angeles Times. “But I don’t want to lose track of the fact that this whole idea I’ve been carrying around for so long is that for about a week, the Hot Band was me and Rodney, sitting around, with my little songbook of all the songs I’d written down in pencil in my little notebook: the Geroge Jones songs, the Don Gibson songs, all the songs I was learning. It was Rodney and me with two acoustic guitars just going at it doing duets: “Sweet Dreams” wonderful stuff. So that’s what we want to get back to. And of course the Hot Band would be the icing on the cake.”

Recording on the album is set to begin in November with songs still being chosen. And as for whether will tour the duets? “I think we should do at least a few shows,” Harris said. “It wouldn’t be a long tour, but it would be a shame not to do a few showcases. That’s way far ahead, like figuring out where you’re going to send your kid to school. We’ve gotta get this baby out first.”